Welcome August

August 4, 2022

 I haven’t set goals in a while, but August certainly has goals. 

 

I told my artist friend, on our chat yesterday, that I had been able to drop my compulsive news following, and now instead of staying up late to watch debates or checking on news from India every hour, I check twice a day and switch off the late night shows and read. Mostly this is true.

 

Reading eight books in August is one of my goals. 

 

I woke after only about four hours of sleep this morning and said goodbye to my spouse. He’s out for a work trip. I couldn’t fall back to sleep and brewed the last of the white tea from Teabox, the one called Silver Needles, cultivated in the foothills of the Himalayas, with more caffeine content than black tea. The day seemed to smell of rich, strong, black, assam tea. Don’t know where the full-bodied, malty, fragrance in the air came from, but I closed my eyes and breathed it in. I drank my less fragrant golden tea slowly and read, finishing the first of the eight books—Either/Or by Elif Batumen—this morning. Then took a picture and posted it in the FB book group a friend had added me to a few years ago

 

The low ache of separation, even when it is only for a day or two, felt in the first hours of apartness, hit me as the not-so-empty day stretched ahead. I had a schedule, and I was tired. Always a challenge to negotiate. 

 

My artist friend completed his PHD defense last week and now is a doctor in waiting. We hadn’t chatted for a couple of weeks, and it was special to hear of his frenzied preparation, moving viva, and the cauldron of feelings after. He said he no longer felt stupid, and we laughed and discussed the areas in which we feel stupid. He had been told that he was stupid since he was a child and in some ways I had too. I solved it for myself by studying Physics and doing well in it. I developed an arrogance, try calling me stupid now, I’d emanate to the joint family who often pulled me down. But later when I started karate I felt very, very, stupid. I told myself that karate was my side passion, a hobby, and it was ok to be stupid there. I couldn’t say that though when I began teaching it and had to grapple with my insecurities. 

 

I don’t know why we don’t like feeling stupid. I want to embrace those stupid parts more. 

 

What next, I asked him, and he told me his plans related to deep listening and art. I shared what I want to work on. I had been trying to write about my karate journey with little success. It was rich but it felt without much body too. Last week an insight-bolt jolted me. It makes only intuitive sense yet, but I began to think of the second event/activity in my life that had altered me irrevocably, the one that my human rights activist self was born from. These identitites, karateka and human rights activist, journey like two parallel rails of a train track. I think I need to see if I can braid them together. 

 

Along with the ache of separation there is a feeling of freedom that comes with being alone, even if it is for a few days. I miss my solitary travels, or days by myself in my home. I don’t know why I need this, since my spouse never restricts me. But this need exists along with the equally strong need to have somebody to be with. 

 

We talked of other things too on our chat, and there is so much more to reflect on and write about as July was very full, but the day’s tasks call.